


At the End

by TheTroninator



Category: iCarly
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Happy Ending, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 15:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18413336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTroninator/pseuds/TheTroninator
Summary: It's been a year since Carly left for Italy and Sam for L.A. Now Sam's heading home again and wondering how much has changed. And Freddie may be doing the same thing.





	At the End

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm not the only one who hated the ending of iCarly and that fact that Sam and Cat ever existed. This is my canon-compliant correction of what they did with Sam and Freddie's relationship, down to the BS reason they broke up in the first place.

At the end of the day, Sam never understood why Carly left when she did. I mean sure, family is priceless, she supposed. Not that Sam could relate to that. But why was he more important than the family she had at home? At her home in Seattle? Sam never had a father, though. And if she had one, maybe she would run off with him to Italy too. At the end of the day, Sam felt there was no choice left. Like her mom would care, like Spencer would care, like Freddie would care. In fact, she knew that last one wouldn’t care. He’d be too absorbed with losing his precious Carly. The very thought gave Sam the taste of acid in her mouth. So, at the end of the day, she got on her motorcycle and left. She didn’t know where she would go, but she knew nothing in Seattle had meaning anymore. Not with her best friend gone and the guy she thought she loved… She rejected another thought on the subject and headed south. 

At the end of the day Freddie couldn’t understand why she had kissed him. I mean, sure, he had always had a crush on her and sure, she was leaving. But why then? After years of pining, after a few days of dating, after many more years of nothing but friendship, why would she kiss him? If only she had known that only a few hours earlier he had entertained the thought of getting back with Sam and it excited him. But he had to shove those feelings down to be supportive of her at a tough time. At the end of the day, that didn’t matter anymore because Carly had kissed him and it didn’t take long for Sam to find out. No matter how Freddie tried to play it off like it was nothing, there was still a blush across his cheeks after he thrust his hands in the air. And Sam could tell. At the end of the day, all thoughts of a real relationship were gone, somewhere down I-5. 

At the end of the year, Sam had about $100 in her pocket and nowhere to go. She had committed herself to finishing high school online, but completely forgot about it in favor of her baby sitting business and shenanigans with a new friend. She had spoken to Freddie a few times. Once for help with some website stuff, and once when he made the long trip down to LA to see her. Of course, he thought she had been maimed, but still, he came. And Sam was so close to pretending that the stupid kiss didn’t happen. So close to suggesting they road trip together back to Seattle. But she didn’t. She let him go back home with nothing more than a chaste hug. And at the end of the year, she realized they didn’t speak again after that. And that she had only “spoken” to Carly through snaps and an online messenger. At the end of the year, Sam realized her life had changed more than she had wanted it to, and yet at the same time it hadn’t changed at all. 

At the end of the year, Freddie had finished his first semester of college and had somehow managed to get nothing but B’s. His mother was of course despondent, and he felt like he should be too, but he wasn’t. He knew he should care more, and without a job or a webshow to run, he could’ve poured all his energy into his school work. But he didn’t. He only managed to keep straight A’s in his last semester of high school because he had started the semester so well. After Carly and Sam left, without the show, Freddie felt like a shell. He would still wander over to the Shay’s apartment and eat dinner with Spencer or watch a movie, but it was like he was a ghost there. Or rather, it was like he was the house, and the apartment was the ghost haunting him. At the end of the year, he realized how meaningless that kiss had really been to her, to Carly. Carly hadn’t reached out to him once. He only got updates on her life through her socials. She seemed great, tan, and like she had a different date each week. Same Carly. But at the end of the year he realized how meaningful that stupid kiss had really been to her, to Sam. Because just like Carly, she never reached out. Well once, because she needed a favor. 

 

The sky was black. Cat waved goodbye to Sam from the side of the road, standing under a street light, her red hair like a neon sign. She called to her, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” 

Sam shook her head and started her car, the reason she only had $100 in her pocket. She spent all of her money, down to the last $100 on it. She hoped it would be enough gas money to get back to Seattle.

“Are you really, really sure?” Cat pleaded, now shouting over the sound of Sam’s car engine. She rocked on her heels a little bit. 

“I’m really, really sure!” Sam yelled back. 

“I’ll miss you,” Cat said, looking down at the pavement. Sam felt like it was a lie. Cat had finished high school and was working in local theater. She had offers from tv networks to come do kids TV shows with some of her friends from school, most of whom were in film school now. She was going places, Sam was not.

“Miss you too,” Sam said anyway, and peeled off, not wanting to waste the gas just sitting there.

She only had about a 17 hour car ride ahead of her, and she wanted to do it all without stopping, except for gas. She left in the evening, hoping that she would make it back to Seattle at a good time to mooch off her mom for dinner. Her mom probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelash, probably didn’t even notice that she had been gone for a year. 

She had a can of spray cheese and a dozen glazed donuts for the ride, but she didn’t know if they would last. It was the only food left in the apartment and she claimed it, not that Cat would put up a fight. 

It didn’t take too long for Sam to start thinking, no matter how desperately she wanted the radio noise to drown out her stupid, not even high-school-diploma-earning brain. Even though she shouted as loud as she could to the lyrics of the bubble gum pop music songs that Cat always made her listen to, she couldn’t escape her whizzing thoughts. So she turned down the radio and talked to herself. 

“Why are you going back to Seattle now?”  
“Because, where else would I go? I only have a hundred bucks and this crappy car.”  
“You know what I mean. Why now?”  
“Because Cat has a life now. She’s not going to baby-sit for the rest of her life.”  
“It’s because she moved on, just like Carly and you don’t know what to do without a best friend pulling you around.”  
“Yeah? You think I’m the one who gets pulled around?”  
“Maybe pulled, maybe pushed…”  
“But I’m supposed to be the pusher! I push people around! I don’t get pushed!”  
“You really think that?”  
“No,” she admitted to herself. She had been pushed and pulled for a long time in all the ways that mattered. She was the one who wore her heart on her sleeve, as much as she hated it and put up the cold exterior. She was the one whose heart always got broken. She was the one who couldn’t stand the thought of life without Carly and had to run away to find someone else to give her life purpose. She was the one who had admitted to liking Freddie first. And that last point stuck with her. For a powerful woman, Sam often gave her power away. And when she kissed Freddie at that lock-in, he had all of it. It was his turn to decide what to do and he made Sam wait. It was excruciating. And she had told him when she fell for him. Of course it was a lie. She had a small, but growing, festering, ugly crush on him since they were kids. It took her a long time to realize it. And she had been so cruel to him because of it. And he should have hated her, she hated herself for being that way. He never told Sam when he started to like her, and it always made Sam question it. But he had been the first to say “I love you.” Of course, it had to be as they were breaking up.  
“But that was years ago!” Sam shouted, this time out loud.  
Then, quietly, inside her head, “It wasn’t that long ago.”  
“It was a long time ago. And I’m different now. At least, I want to be.”

Sam shook her head. Was she going back to Seattle to find Freddie, to ask him these questions? Did it even matter? He was in college now, and she was still stuck in high school. 

 

Freddie loaded up the back of his dinky little car with a few weeks worth of clothes. Ms. Benson hovered nearby. 

“Why do you have to go all the way to Los Angeles?” She asked. “Can’t you just stay here? For me?”

Freddie groaned. “It’s winter break; Christmas is over; just let me live, woman!” 

“Freddie!” Ms. Benson scolded. But her expression softened. “Okay, I’m sorry. I have to face it I guess.” She started to sound weepy. “You’re a big boy now.” Then she let out a little sob and hiccup.

Freddie slammed his trunk lid down. “I’m not a big boy, mom. I’m an adult.”

She nodded, still crying. “I know, I know, I just…” She wailed. 

“Alright, I’m out,” Freddie said, short and sharp. He opened his car door to start the drive, but stopped himself. He walked to his mother only a few feet away and gave her a second-long hug. “I’ll be fine, mom. I’m just going to visit Robby and then I’ll come right back home, okay?”

She slurped her drool back into her mouth and sniffed her snot back into her nose and forced a smile. Freddie winced at the sight, got in his car, waved, and drove off, headed down I-5 south, the same way Sam had headed last year. 

It was true, he was going to LA for the purpose of meeting up with Robby, a guy who he had oddly become pretty close with at the hospital while their fish-inflicted injuries healed. Freddie chuckled at how he never expected to make a new friend on that last trip to LA, how he never really expected anything that happened, especially since Sam was involved. He would be lying to himself to say that he didn’t hope he would run into her there. But he hadn’t talked to her since his last time there, when he was released from the hospital. When he got a burger with Sam and talked about nothing really. When she gave him a hug goodbye. 

He couldn’t help himself but to wonder what would have happened if he had just stayed with her a while longer, if he hadn’t been so quick to go back to his semblance of a life in Seattle, to school, to his mother. It all seemed stupid. She was his best friend, when he really thought about it. It was all stupid. She was so mean to him all the time. Why did he like her so much? Why did he care? So what, you grow up with someone for 7 years? He muttered all this to himself, knowing the answer. Despite it all, she cared about him, and he knew it. She had her issues, but at the end of the day, he knew that as bad as she could hurt him, she would hurt anyone else twice as badly if he ever was in trouble. 

As the hours passed he thought about what he said to his mom. That he was an adult. Street lights illuminating the highway streaked in his windows, looked as though they were moving, and fast. But they were still, everything around them moving. Freddie was the same way. He wasn’t an adult, not by any means. His bank account? Just savings from the Ad money earned while he ran iCarly and the weekly allowance his mother deposited for him. What a loser, he thought of himself. It was a wonder that Sam ever liked him. Freddie laughed out loud at himself, and at this thought. When left to himself, the thoughts always came back to her. 

While he was on the subject, he figured he could at least call Sam, tell her that he would be there in the afternoon. (He had left at night to avoid having to get a hotel and to attempt to avoid as much traffic out of Seattle as possible.) He picked up his phone. He still had her on speed-dial. His phone rang once, twice, and he hit end call. Embarrassed. She wouldn’t want to see him. The last time she saw him, she left him with nothing but a limp hung. 

 

Sam’s phone buzzed, making a metallic noise as it vibrated against the now-empty can of spray cheese in the passenger seat. She reached to her right to pick it up. “Missed call: Fredwad Beano”. “I really ought to change his name in my phone,” she said to herself. But why did he hang up so quickly? Must have been a misdial. It’s hard on smartphones to misdial, Sam thought. Maybe he’s drunk. She laughed to herself. Straight laced Freddie would never imbibe. Sam didn’t even do it. She kept laughing, but couldn’t laugh off the idea that Freddie had meant to call her. She had half a mind to call him back, asked what he wanted, but it was the middle of the night. It had to have been a mistake. 

 

Freddie cursed at himself. “Why in the world would any sane person call their ex at midnight!?” he shouted. “I’m so dumb.” He then realized that he had just called her his ex. He never really did that, not even when vaguely referencing her to kids in his college classes. She was always, “an old friend.” That never felt right either, but he didn’t want to call her his ex. Because that sounded like things were over. And they very much seemed to be, but he didn’t want to say so. She was always an old friend, ever since they shared a first kiss he felt that way, but she wasn’t always an ex. That was new. But then he realized, it really wasn’t that new. It had been years since they dated. Why couldn’t he let it go? It didn’t matter, the important thing was that she would know he tried to call her at midnight. There’s no such thing as butt-dial with a smartphone. 

 

Sam’s finger hovered over his name on her speed dial list. She could just call to see what he wanted. But she thought better of it. She would talk to him soon enough, she figured. She would run into him in Seattle, out of school for winter break, hanging out at Spencer’s. Because after mooching whatever her mom was eating, she would definitely go to Spencer’s to mooch off of him. 

Her mouth watered at the thought of a spaghetti taco. It had been so long since she’s had one of his tacos. She could hear the crunch of the shell and could just about taste the marinara. The scene turned to one of a family around a dinner table, comprised of a brother, a sister, two friends, and sometimes the owner of a smoothie shop, sometimes a goofy kid who used to take off his shirt all the time. And she was a part of that family, the one that really mattered. But she knew it wouldn’t be the same without Carly there. She was probably off having the best spaghetti ever in Italy, not caring that she totally ruined Sam and Freddie’s relationship by leaving… and by giving him that stupid kiss. 

Sam imagined that Carly and Freddie video chat every night. They were getting older, maybe she took her top off for him, maybe she had all kinds of Italian helping-bras. Sam gritted her teeth and tossed her phone, letting it clang against the empty cheese spray. Maybe she didn’t want to see Freddie. She didn’t know what to say to him aside from, “What’s up Freddo?”

Sam grabbed a glazed donut. It wasn’t quite a spaghetti taco, but it would work for now.

Opting to listen to an audiobook, Freddie was finally able to keep his mind distracted from how embarrassing that 15 second phone call had been. He was glad she hadn’t picked up, and now he could listen to Game of Thrones in peace. The first book was just long enough that he could listen to half on the way down and half on the way back up. This was perfect, until he realized that Sam had been the one to recommend it to him. He shut the radio off. 

17 hour long car rides were boring, thought Freddie, and he was only about 7 hours in. The sun was threatening to rise, the sky having lightened up a bit. He was solidly in Oregon and fast approaching California, but he needed to stretch his legs and pee and, he checked the gas gauge, probably get some gas again. 

 

Sam had left Los Angeles at about 10 o’clock and it was now almost 7 am. Sam was a machine, but not even she was immune to dehydration. And she probably needed to fill up the tank again. She was down to only three donuts and she wondered how that could have happened. She hadn’t even noticed that she’s eaten most of them, but she needed to find an exit. She was going to wait until she crossed into Oregon, though. She wanted to see if she could delay her gratification. She wasn’t known for her patience, but she was working on it. 

After about an hour, she was into Oregon; the sun was fully up and Sam had sufficiently enjoyed its beauty. The long ride had been so boring that a sunrise was like watching a high speed chase. Sam found an exit with a Chevron station, which was all she needed. No stopping for food, as much as it pained her--she couldn’t spare the cash.

She pulled into the station and hopped out of her car, she went into the counter to put as much as would be needed to fill the tank on her pump--the Chevron station had some of the best prices she had seen--and she hoped it would be enough to get her the rest of the way to Seattle.

 

Freddie could swear he had heard of Medford, Oregon somewhere before. Maybe Jeopardy? He mulled this over in his head as he pulled of the exit to stretch his legs and fill up the car at the Chevron station. He had been on the road almost 8 hours and was pretty weary, especially since Game of Thrones has soured for him. He pulled behind an unattended car that he would probably describe as a hunk of junk. He got out to pump his gas and peered nosily through the windows. He observed a can of spray cheese in the passenger’s seat and a half-empty box of donuts in the driver’s seat. He shook his head. His car may not be a classic, but it was certainly tidy. 

He turned his head back to the pump, but could swear he caught a flash of a familiar blond head out of the corner of his eye inside at the counter. He shook his head. He must be going crazy. She had been on his mind, so naturally he thought it was her, but he couldn’t be sure until he looked again.

He glanced back over and she seemed to be gone. So he shrugged and went back to inserting the pump into his car. Until he heard a familiar voice.

 

“Fred--” she didn’t even say his full name before it caught in her throat. She didn’t know what to say after that, so she just stopped. And she couldn’t be sure it was really him. What would he be doing in south Oregon at 8 o’clock on a Monday morning? She hoped he didn’t hear her, but then when his head snapped up, she was sure, it really was him.

 

It really was her.

 

“Sam?” Freddie said, setting the pump down to fill on its own. “What are you doing here?” 

“Back at you,” she replied, snappy as ever. She was close to resting a hand on her hip.

“I was…” he realized he would sound so stupid to say he was on his way to LA, but he couldn’t think of a good lie. “I was heading down to see Robby.”

“Robby?” she said, almost spitting. Her hair was falling in her face. “You guys got that close after becoming fish food, huh?”

Freddie just stammered. 

“Huh, what crazy odds,” Sam said, mumbling, as if she really didn’t find it that odd. “Well, I gotta pump too, I guess.”

Freddie scrunched his eyebrows together. He walked over to her pump and grabbed it from her, put it in her car himself, and he stood there holding the handle while she just stared at him. Her face was scrunched too, like she was trying to figure it out. 

“What are you doing?” she asked eventually. 

“Pumping your gas,” said Freddie. He acted as though it were normal to grab a gas pump out of someone’s hand and pump their gas for them, like it was just the thing to do.

“I mean, I figured that,” Sam said. She sat on the curb and touched her toes, stretched her arms behind her, cracked her neck. 

“You’ve been driving a long way too, huh,” said Freddie, realizing that the pump could stop at any moment.

“Well, duh, I lived in LA.”

Freddie laughed, he couldn’t help himself. It was all going so much worse than he expected. With Sam, though, he should have known. You could never expect what would happen. Of course he would cross paths with her in Oregon at a Chevron station at 8am. Of course.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, but she was smiling too. 

“I missed you,” was all Freddie said. 

Sam looked up at his crinkling, smiling eyes. “You did?”

“Yeah, like crazy.” 

Then Sam gave him this puzzled look. 

“Well, I miss Carly too,” he said, lying, but trying to recover.

“I bet,” Sam said. 

The gas pumped clicked off.

Freddie didn’t want to stop there though, not on that lie, not on the insinuation that Sam didn’t mean something different to him than Carly. 

“Let’s get breakfast!” he blurted out. 

She turned out her pockets as if she had something to prove.“I can’t, no money.” If Sam had been lying about not having money, as she often did, it wouldn’t matter. 

“I’ll pay,” Freddie said, perhaps too quickly.

“Okay, I’m pretty hungry,” she said.

“Even after eating all those donuts?” Freddie asked, gesturing to her front seat. 

“Look, Freddie, you know what I am.”

“Do I?” He chuckled. “I guess I do. Denny’s?” 

Sam pulled her car into the Denny’s parking lot and Freddie beside her. She turned off her car and wondered what she was doing.

“Come on,” Freddie said, tapping on her window. She got out of the car and walked beside him, her hand dangling close to his, almost grazing it. She stuck her hand down in her pocket. 

They were quickly seated, both ordered a coffee, and just looked around, as if looking for some inspiration for conversation in the undecorated diner. Eventually, Freddie spoke. “So… heading back to Seattle, I take it?”

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“Just to visit?”

“I don’t know.” And it was true, she didn’t know. She didn’t know if anything would give her a reason to stay this time. “Hey,” she said suddenly, like one does when they’re about to change the subject to divert attention from themself. “Why did you call me at midnight?”

Freddie turned red. “I just wanted to tell you… I was coming.” The waitress dropped off their coffee cups and took their order while the information hung in the air.

“So, were you really going to see Robby?” Sam asked, stirring some sugar in her coffee.

“I thought you always just took your coffee black?” said Freddie.

“Look, I’ve changed. I’ve been sweetened,” she said, pouring in a third packet. “But back to you.”

Freddie shrugged. “I was going to go see Robby. I was hoping I might see you.” 

“Yeah? Why?” She took a deep sip.

Freddie blew his coffee and added some creamer. “Because we’re old friends.”

“Old friends?” Sam said. “Huh. Are we old enough to have ‘old friends’?”

Freddie didn’t want to be sappy or sentimental, but he just about couldn’t help it. “I just don’t like calling you my ex.”

“You want to pretend we never dated?” Sam said, setting her coffee cup down with a little more force than she might have intended to. 

But now Freddie didn’t know what to say. She knew if he said it was because he wished it hadn’t ended or because he didn’t want their relationship to be over, all Sam would think about was about that stupid kiss on that stupid night a year ago. If stupid Carly hadn’t left, maybe they could have revisited the conversation from earlier that day about getting back together. But no, Carly had to leave, so she had to kiss him, and he just had to have that stupid giddy look on his face that gave it all away. So Freddie chose his words carefully. “No, it’s just that you’re so much more than an ex.”

Sam couldn’t suppress her smile. “That’s nice,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

And neither knew what to say, so they ate in relative silence. “Good pancakes,” Sam said with a mouthful.

“Yeah,” Freddie replied, his mouth full as well.

Freddie paid while Sam waited outside. He half-expected her to just drive off without saying goodbye. That would be the Sam thing to do, but she was still there, with her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. 

He realized that they hadn’t really talked much, hadn’t discussed what she was up to these days, aside from going home. He hadn’t talked at all about college. He knew why he didn’t bring it up. He didn’t have anything to tell, but he knew Sam had her babysitting business and Cat and an apartment of her own and she didn’t talk about any of it. Maybe he should have asked, but it seemed too late. 

She was just staring out at the horizon. He nudged her with his elbow. “Heading out?” he asked. 

“Yeah, guess I better. Only about 7 hours to go, huh?” she said. 

“It’s good luck we found each other today,” Freddie said. He wanted desperately to hold her hand, for old times sake, but her hands were in her pockets still.

Sam leaned over though, and rested her head on his shoulder for a moment. “It was good luck. Guess I’ll see you around?” She pulled her head back.

“Yeah,” he said, wishing she would just keep her head resting there forever. “I’ll be back in Seattle in a few weeks.” He now wished he wasn’t going to LA at all. Robby would probably understand, but then again, Freddie didn’t want to be a bad friend. 

“Well, we’ll see,” is all she said. She walked away, opened her car door, paused for a moment, got in.

Freddie waved weakly before walking to get in his own car. He wanted to beat his head against the steering wheel, but opted to just drive. 

 

After about an hour Sam was still buzzing, wondering if it was just too pathetic to lean her head on his shoulder, wondering why she hadn’t just talked to him a little more. And then the thought crossed her mind, that she could probably catch back up to him if she just turned around, but how more pathetic would that be! She only had a few hours left to go now.

 

Freddie cursed himself for letting her go without just telling her how much he regretted that stupid kiss and how much he wished he could take it all back, how much he hated that the last year had been spent without her. How much he sucked at college because Sam had become the driving force behind almost everything he did, even if it was just to spite her. He had come to love how much she teased him for being a nerd. It reminded how they were like missing pieces meant to fit together and make each other better. He wished he had realized that sooner and not let them break up. He couldn’t stand it. There was now two hours between them and considering it had already been a year, that was two hours too much. He picked up his phone and dialed Robby. 

“I’m sorry, Robby, I can’t make it.”

“I already have the daybed made up for you!” came the voice on the other end in a squawking pitch. 

“Robby, I just saw Sam at a gas stop in Oregon and I just feel like it’s a sign or something,” Freddie said, looking for an exit to get off and turn around. He felt stupid saying it outloud, but he knew Robby would get it. 

“Next time, maybe,” Robby said, but not too sad sounding now. 

Freddie started to punch it, his heart racing. He knew he had to just tell Sam the truth and do it in person. He wasn’t going to miss his chance.

 

Sam pulled up to Bushwell Plaza, opting to visit Spencer before her mother. She actually ran into him in the lobby getting his mail and he looked up almost immediately as if he sensed her presence. His whole face lit up, but behind it, Sam could see that he had aged a lot in just a year.

“Sam!” Spencer exclaimed, dropping his mail on the floor. He held his arms open and Sam walked in for a hug. 

“Hey, Spence,” she said. 

“When did you get into Seattle?” he asked, not pulling away even an inch. Sam felt a little sad now, Spencer seemed to need this so much.

“About, um, six minutes ago?” Sam said into his shirt. 

“What about…” Spencer stopped talking, and Sam realized the question was going to be about her mom and he already knew the answer. She came to him first because he was her real family, more than her mother. “Hey, you want some tacos?”

“The spaghetti kind?” Sam asked.

Spencer finally pulled away, his dark eyes sparkling. “As if I’d make any other kind.” They got into the elevator together, then as the door began to close, Spencer slammed the door-open button. “Got to get my mail off the floor.” He ran out, picked it up and jumped back on. Sam couldn’t help but laugh. 

When they got up to the apartment, it looked preserved like a museum, there was even a tube of Carly’s chapstick on the side table by the couch. It hadn’t moved since that night they left, perhaps only to be dusted under. Sam was a little uncomfortable to be there without Carly, Freddie, hell, even Gibby would make it a little better. But Spencer looked so happy. 

“How’s the bike?” Spencer asked. 

“I traded for a car,” Sam answered quickly, like ripping a band-aid off.

Spencer seemed taken aback, but he recovered. “That’s probably smart.” 

“It would have been a cold ride up here,” Sam said. 

Spencer started to rummage in the kitchen for ingredients. 

 

About two hours later, Freddie pulled up to Sam’s old place and almost forgot to turn the car off before running all the way to where he remembered her mom’s apartment door was. He had never been over much. 

Her mom swung the door open, and as usual, she was wearing a seasonally inappropriate bikini. “Who are you?” she barked. 

“Um, Freddie, remember? Sam's friend?” he stammered, not surprised at all at her reaction. 

“Oh, right, the nerd,” she said, and started to close the door. Freddie stuck his leg out to catch it.

“Is Sam here?”

“No, why would she be?” 

“Nevermind,” Freddie mumbled, feeling stupid. Of course Sam wouldn't go to her mom's place first. She would go home.

Freddie got back in the car and started heading toward Bushwell Plaza. About half way there, he caught the sight of bouncing blond hair caught in the light of a street lamp, walking down the sidewalk. Just a hoodie on, way too thin for a cold Seattle day. Freddie pulled over immediately and jumped out of the car. 

 

Sam looked up, seeing the guy she expected to be in California by now. 

“Hey,” he said, his voice sounding gruff, if not a little sexy, as if, perhaps, he had not gotten much sleep, if any, in the last day. 

“Hey,” she managed to say. She even held up her hand in a pitiful wave. What was he doing here?

“Halfway between,” Freddie said, with a laugh. “I got lucky again.”

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked, knowing somewhere inside herself what the answer must be. Why else would Freddie drive halfway to Los Angeles just to turn around and come back home? 

Freddie took a step forward, Sam inched closer too. In that moment--Freddie's car door still open, some slow, sappy song spilling out from the car radio--it was like they were kids again, eyelids fluttering, hearts pounding, emotions out on the line. He never answered her, but instead kissed her, on the mouth, slowly at first. Wrapping his arms around her, to keep her warm, he couldn't help but lean in a little further and he was glad that she was clinging to him too. 

 

At the end of the school year, Carly would come back from Italy to transfer to a school closer to home for the fall. She missed Spencer and got tired of the Italian boys. And she and Sam would pick up where they left off, best friends. But this time Carly knew better than to go around kissing Freddie. It was different now. Carly didn't need to give relationship advice to them, she didn't doubt their maturity or ability to handle their differences. And she didn't have any doubt in her mind that Freddie loved Sam this time around. He had come for Sam, he had kissed her first.

Freddie would go back to college for the spring semester, and then again for fall, and Sam would do whatever she wanted to do. But Freddie was not going to watch her leave again, and he wouldn't make her settle down or give up on being weird. No, he knew now how much he needed that weirdness, how much he needed her spontaneity. And Sam was fine with dating a nerd, especially knowing it was her that pushed him even more into being one. They were two sides of the same coin, it seemed, or maybe like two cogs in a clock, rotating in opposite directions, but clicking together, making the hands turn. And it was not really perfect, but it was right, at the end.


End file.
